littlebird- I felt your pain! My daughter was in that prewalking stage for awhile too ( It felt like MONTHS!). Emma decided to start walking independently a few days after turning 16 months. Luckily, she waited until her Daddy got home from work to do so! Earlier that day, I saw her walk across the room twice. But when he got home, she started walking around the kitchen and didn't stop. We were ecstatic! Did Tzippy do this sort of bear walk a few days before walking independently? That was adorable when Emma did it!!

haha, she totally did. i kept putting her in dresses to make crawling awkward (gosh, i'm such an awful mother) and she just did the bear walk instead. she's been capable of walking across a room for a couple weeks too... but it would be so painfully slow and cautious, it was driving me nuts!

No advice on the shoes though. Grey has oddly shaped feet-- not particularly wide but very um, tall? Fat in the up direction? So we have basically had to buy him the one brand that we can find in a store that fits... Which, of course, aren't vegan. (Pedipeds, for the record.). He wore the same pair for the first 6-7 months he walked and they're still in such good condition that we can use them for newbaby, which I take some comfort in.

yeah, we have some pedipeds too. handed down, so i haven't had to buy them yet, and currently she's right in between sizes. the ones i really loved were a stride rite kind with a totally flexible light sole and a really cute style, but they didn't have her size. the kind we ended up with were non-vegan stride rites with a slightly thicker sole than i like.

She won't ever listen to me. I feel like I shouldn't even bother yelling ever. I know it is normal to have a kid that basically ignores me unless she wants something but the people in my life make me feel like a terrible parent. fork them, we're free spirits! *paints her toenails while her daughter draws on the wall*

Grey has oddly shaped feet-- not particularly wide but very um, tall? Fat in the up direction?

This made me laugh so hard!

So, the night before I went into labor I scalded my stomach with vegan jello that I was making to take to the hospital and got these gross little blisters all over the left side of my belly. And they left scars. Scars which turned six months old yesterday and are still there full force! Gross. But what makes me laugh is that when it happened (on my giant pregnant belly) they were down pretty low and now they are up high, like almost under my ribcage. Skin is so weird.

No advice on the shoes though. Grey has oddly shaped feet-- not particularly wide but very um, tall? Fat in the up direction? So we have basically had to buy him the one brand that we can find in a store that fits... Which, of course, aren't vegan. (Pedipeds, for the record.). He wore the same pair for the first 6-7 months he walked and they're still in such good condition that we can use them for newbaby, which I take some comfort in.

Those are the ones we have! He had that exact color for his first pair, and now a different color of the same in a larger size. I was under the impression that some part of them is leather-- part of the strap and part in front of the toe-- but maybe it's synthetic. You can launder them, so, maybe.

Ha funny. They are cute! I looked at them again and wondered about the trim you mentioned (before reading your post), since it looks like leather. Do they have those symbols on the inside that adult shoes have, with an outline of an animal skin if it is leather?

_________________I'm not asking for utopian dreams...just a little peace in this world. That's a logical thing. - Deee-Lite

annak - I'd love to try Isabooties but I can't find them in a store anywhere, and like I said, the Emperor has oddly shaped feet and there's just no point in buying him shoes we can't try on first. We tried seriously every brand we could find in stores before finding the Pedipeds that fit... very tedious.

I'll check on the inside of the Pedipeds tonight and see if they have any more info on the leather/not leather status! I would freaking love for them to be stealth vegan shoes, because everything else about them is great.

the daycare seems to frown on soft-soled shoes... they walk to the park everyday and spend a lot of time outdoors so they don't really believe a soft soled shoe will hold up. the only reason i bought shoes at all was for daycare. we go barefoot or in soft-soled cloth shoes most of the time, but they really wanted her to have a "real" shoe. and the cheap non leather ones i could find make her feet sweat like crazy or are kind of badly designed and stiff.

Have you all had bad experiences with Isabooties? Because that was my plan...

We just bought a pair for poopiebaby. When I looked at their website there was VERY limited stock (like, three designs, and only limited sizes in those designs). I went ahead and ordered, then saw a comment on their facebook page asking why they were going out of business (I couldn't see anywhere that stated they were, but they haven't posted on their facebook page in months and their stock is low, so who knows?).

Anyway, a week after ordering from them, I sent them an email to ask if they'd received my order, since I'd heard nothing from them. A week later, I got a response saying yes, sorry, they would send out my order in the next couple of days. Another full week later, it finally shipped. They seem nice (they're still a little too big for poopiebaby's feet and won't quite stay on), but I'm a little worried that if I hadn't emailed, they would never have sent them. I certainly didn't expect to wait three weeks for my order to ship when ordering directly from a supplier.

Since becoming a parent, I'm more sensitive than usual to news stories that involve children. I cannot take knowing that those horrible things happen and the last few major story headlines have made me very, very depressed.

Since becoming a parent, I'm more sensitive than usual to news stories that involve children. I cannot take knowing that those horrible things happen and the last few major story headlines have made me very, very depressed.

I have trouble with bad news anyway and since the day I found out I was pregnant I've been just like you, I immediately turn off news stories that involve children even teenagers I just can't take it. There was a story of a teenager who was murdered by her boyfriend and the father came on tv sobbing and I just lost it.

Since becoming a parent, I'm more sensitive than usual to news stories that involve children. I cannot take knowing that those horrible things happen and the last few major story headlines have made me very, very depressed.

I feel the same way. I have been in a funk for the last 24 hours since reading this most recent awful thing and thinking about those poor parents. I wish I could filter the news so that I did not have to hear/read about those sorts of things.

About three days after we got home with the Emperor after his birth, I iwas reading a piece in the New Yorker about the wildfires in Australia a few years ago. At some point, the author described the remains of a family in a house-- eight adult skeletons which were in a circle around what was obviously a baby skeleton. It's been two years since I read this and I still forking cry every time I think about it, I'm tearing up just typing it out.